Sirente Velino Park – Review By Travel Abruzzo

Sirente Velino Park:

INTRODUCTION

THE PARK

LOCATION

HISTORY

WILDLIFE

FLORA

The Sirente Velino Park is a protected natural area established in 1989 in Abruzzo, in the province of L'Aquila, whose headquarters are located in Rocca di Mezzo. The protected area covers an area of 54,361 hectares including the territories of the Monte Velino and Sirente Mountains.

The Sirente-Velino Regional Nature Park was created with the aim of preserving the environmental values as well as transmitting to the future generations the cultural elements and the signs of historical-architectural riches inherited from the past. The Sirente Velino Regional Park is an enchanting natural scenery, an unspoiled landscape that houses one of the most significant flora and fauna in the center of Italy. It is a story center that preserves the testimonies of a still alive past, where the presence of temples, castles, towers, medieval villages allows a dip in the past immersed in an exceptional nature.

The Sirente-Velino is the third mountain range at the height of the continental Apennines after Gran Sasso and Majella, located in the central Abruzzo Apennines, which occupies the central ridge between the Laga Mountains and the Gran Sasso in the northeast and theSimbruini Mountains reaching the maximum height of the MountVelino (2,487 m). Of particular interest is the presence of many karst cave formations all around the area of Sirente and Cicolano.

The richness of the Sirente Velino Park is not only in its nature, but also in its precious heritage of history, culture and traditions inherited from a past that has helped define the identity of this territory and its community and whose signs are still well preserved and appreciated today. The park has been inhabited by man since ancient times; in middle ages, it played a strategic role in defense and military control, which influenced the landscaping and architectural layout of the Park, where you can admire fortified villages, sightseeing and control towers, castles and Roman bridges.

Within such a variety of habitats and landscapes, wild and untouched places can also be found, with vast forests and rock formations still inhabited by deers, apennine wolves, real eagles andn marsican bears, alongside areas where the historical presence of man is witnessed by ancient Settlements and well-preserved historic centers.

The Sirente Velino Park is a fine example of floristic biodiversity: 1,570 species up to now censed, grouped into 516 genes and 102 families. Of these, there are 116 emerging floral species that are listed in critical state (endemisms, glacial wrecks, disjoined or fragmentary species and rare species) including particularly rare species.